What Happens Next?
by Lifehousefanatic2011
Summary: What happens now? We wait. We survive. We think. The remaining gladers are in paradise, or so it is named, trying to build a new home. Thomas can't forget everyone they lost, and he can't shake the guilt. What happens when Minho suggests going back to Denver? What if WCKD found their cure? And what happens when Thomas remembers more and more what happened before the maze? No OC.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: Okay. So this is my first TMR fanfiction. I will say ****_right now_**** there will be spoilers for all the books and, I mean its maze runner, there will be some violence and dark themes. As for the main point of the story, ever since I started this series the thought in my head had been, besides WTF this can't be happening oh poor baby Newt and WTF are you doing Thomas, was what would happen when W.I.C.K.E.D. did find their cure, and the details of their "trials" came to light. So, hopefully, eventually that is where this story will go. I just still can't handle what happened to Newt and the absolute zero amount of closure we got for him. A lot of this will have to do with him, naturally. I guess I should just let you guys read the story now... Good luck. Hope you enjoy. If I do change this to M rating it will be just to be safe, I don't plan on having anything explicit or really any pairings at all, I just am not that kind of writer. **

The Maze Runner

Thomas sat, the cool breeze brushing his hair around his forehead and chilling his arms as the night crept towards him. The bark of the fallen tree was rough under his fingertips and his rear was sore from having sat on the uneven surface for so long, but he had no desire to leave. He could see everything from his vantage point on top of the hill, his feet hanging of the ledge on the steeper side of the out-cropping, the green grass and sparse wooden structures stretching out in front of him. It had taken a lot of work to make with only the minimal supplies the former-gladers had on their backs when they escaped W.I.C.K.E.D. with the new immunes, and still took a lot to upkeep.

The ones that had experience in the glade went out for supply runs roughly once a month, needing items that weren't craftable in nature, mostly stuff for the females in the paradise - stuff all the boys dueled rock paper scissors about who would have to carry back. The rest of the month consisted of hunting and scavenging, stockpiling and rationing. The set up they had in the glade was far more advanced, but they were making their little spot home day by day, week by week, face by face.

The log shakes underneath him as another person sits down, bowing the large wood with the added weight. Minho's face is hard in the afternoon light, his thick eyebrows scrunched together and lowered down on his eyes as sat, his expression indicating he was deep in thought. _Don't hurt yourself there buddy,_ Thomas thought. Thomas looks forward again, waiting for his friend to say what's on his mind.

"Do you think he's alright? Minho asks Thomas.

"Who?" A long pause follows before Minho looks up at Thomas, his face still serious and his thumbs twiddling between the legs of his dirty pants.

"Newt." Thomas's stomach drops then twists painfully around in his gut. Minho's gaze goes to the horizon of their "paradise," thinking about the answer to his own question. Thomas remained quiet, the image of Newt's pleading eyes as he'd held the gun to his own forehead flashed and seared through Thomas's brain. "That was a stupid question." Minho finally said, breaking the silence and relaxing his tense expression and body language, placing his hands behind him and leaning back on the log. "Guy was half crazy with the flare last time we saw him," Minho exhaled sharply. He pushed himself back up and put his hands on his knees. "I guess what I'm really asking is, do you think he's still alive over there?" His eyes turned back to Thomas, hope, almost indiscernible, shining behind his dark brown eyes. He shook his head then. "Look at you turning me into a thinker," he shoved Thomas in the shoulder, a forced grin on his darkened face.

"Ain't many of us that ever got curious, that ever gave a klunk about the world for long after we came out of the box. Those that did wound up dead or were shut the shuck down by Alby. After the first changlings, seeing how horrified they were with the memories they regained, everyone got down. Shoved questions away. Most of us didn't want to even _think_ about the possibility that when, and later if, we got out of that godforesaken maze the world could be just as shucked, or even more shucked than the maze. The changlings were so discouraging. Destroyed people's spirits at first. Newt always kept them up though, told them we were gonna be okay."

Minho mumbled something that sounded like _dumb ass shank didn't believe a word of it_, but Thomas wasn't really sure. He could have just as easily said dumb ass shank_s_ didn't believe a word of it, and that's honestly what Thomas hoped he'd said.

"Things got worse when Alby dragged back that half dead english shank from the maze. It was rough keeping people from giving up during all the changlings, death, and injury. I didn't envy Nick or Alby for having to deal with it. The few times I said anything to the cry babies didn't go over well. Apparently telling them to 'quit acting like shuck children and deal with what klunk we have' isn't very consoling."

Minho rolled his eyes and Thomas tried to force a smile, but his mind was still stuck on the image Minho had put in his head of Newt and Alby. Thomas knew exactly what he was talking about when he said that. Exactly what event destroyed the gladers hope. He remember Newt spitting it in his face, shouting how all the pain newt dealt with had been Thomas's fault, and how he had always hated him for it. Those words shook Tomas awake in the middle of the night to this day, nearly a year later he still plagued himself with what-ifs. What if Newt hadn't been taken from the burg? What if they had known he wasn't immune the whole time? And they he is stuck with what _did_ happen.

He'd try to tell himself the anger and hate was The Flare talking, that his best friend wasn't the one saying those hurtful and spiteful thing, but the sentences still echoed in his skull and woke him up in a cold sweat most nights, still kept him from sleeping well, or even sleeping at all. Still was the reason for the constant tired eyes of the sub-leader of their "paradise."

Because he _knew _there was truth in those words. He wasn't sure how much truth, but even crazy people have reasons for what they say. It doesn't come out of thin air. Newt had said things that when Thomas found him in the street before going to raid W.I.C.K.E.D. that made him think there was truth in the angry words. There was substance and not just insanity.

Thomas had been cautious, not sure if his friend would remember him, but he did, and Thomas remember the short angry tone Newt had used when he said "he'd bloody remembered Thomas, that he hadn't gone that crazy in a few days," that he remembered when the gladers visited him in the crank palace, that he remember the note he'd entrusted to his Tommy, and remember Thomas had failed him. Newt was grounded in the few memories he had.

He remembered his life in the glade and the people he knew there. His friend, their second in command, was still in there. Because of this he knew there was truth in the words that were spat at him like venom. Knew they might have been skewed by the insanity, but that there was reason in them too. Knew he had had an opportunity to relieve his friend before he became consumed be the anger and hatred. Thomas clung to the hope that the hatred Newt had for him was The Flare, that maybe he had been angry _once,_ but that when he was his sane, rational self he knew _Tommy_ was his friend. Was on his side. That he cared for Newt. And that Newt had trusted him.

He knew Newt trusted him once. He'd been the _only_ one Newt trusted with his plea. And Thomas knew he'd had a chance to prevent the entire nightmarish confrontation, for his friend to die, and for his last memories to have been peaceful, not full of hate and resentment for the person he'd once called a _friend_. The person Newt had seen as the enemy in his final moments. These thoughts and memories were what woke him with a pounding heart, quick breaths and a sweat slicked body on a cool night, and it still sent acid up his throat to think W.I.C.K.E.D. took away the life of such a caring boy because they wouldn't tell some _semblance_ of the truth sooner.

It made Thomas think they might have been able to prevent losing Newt if they'd known he wasn't immune from the start. Could have protected him during their trek through the scorch, whether Newt was willing or not, they _would_ have protected him. Would have done everything in their minute power to help. But it was too late for that. The only thing that calmed Thomas down from the nightmares was that hopefully, wherever Newt was, he could look at Thomas again fondly, and see him as a friend.

**Author's note: Yes again. Sorry not sorry lol. So yeah, obviously I was unhappy with how Thomas seemed to forget about his friend dying at the end of the book, and I'm trying to add in stuff with Teresa too, but I just never liked her so it's hard, and its different, to me, the way she died. Yes it was tragic, and yes it was ****_for_**** Thomas, but she did it herself, Thomas didn't actually kill her or anything. So he'll miss her surely, but that pressing guilt won't be there. Anyway. This story is going to have a lot of backstory in there, mostly presented like this, the way it was in the books, Thomas just randomly remembering things. So yeah. Lots of backstory in store, lots of what happens after paradise also. Alright. Bye :)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi everyone. Author here. So I've decided I am going to update EVERY Thursday, if not more. If I don't update, you can just assumed I was dragged away by a griever or angry Minho. Jk. But seriously every Thursday. I really enjoy The Maze Runner and going on about these wonderful characters, and about our main trio in general. I think you'll notice Newt is my favorite, or maybe you have already. And I love the other guys too. I'll be clear now too, I am not going to be doing pairings. I seriously ship some bromances, but that is all there is. Bromance. Like Newtmas, fuck yes, in a bromance way. Their interactions make me so happy. Minewt, fuck yes. Minho putting his foot down and telling everyone they had a lot to do but his priority was his friend and there would be no argument about it. Even when he was being a bit of a dick I knew (as a psychology student) that it was just because he couldn't handle the news about his closest friend being marked for death, and a terrible one at that. Anyway, I'll let you guys get to the story. **

**X - Artemeigh **

_The only thing that calmed Thomas down from the nightmares was that hopefully, wherever Newt was, he could look at Thomas again fondly, and see him as a friend._

He realized then that Minho had been waiting on him to say something for some time, and it took him a minute to backtrack to what his friend had actually said. Right. Newt. Alby. Gladers. Klunk. Thomas shook his head, he hadn't really expected that topic to go any farther, and had quite honestly hoped it wouldn't. It still tore at his soul just to think about Newt. "What the shuck are you talking about slint-head?" He asked, finally meeting his last living friend's gaze.

"I figured he'd told you what happened," Minho's brows furrowed but his eyes showed a slight amount of ... relief? It was then Thomas realized something: Newt never _told_ anyone what happened in the maze. If anyone knew, they'd figured it out on their own, and Newt probably fought it all the way. And the thought didn't surprise him at all. Newt always tried to protect everyone else at his own expense. When the grievers attacked, it hadn't been Gally, the big talking broad shouldered brute that had saved Thomas and Alby, it was Newt. It was the boy with the limp that came running in with a spear and a machete to give them time to get Alby to safety.

Thomas was certain that when Newt jumped, and realized he wasn't going to die, he didn't call for help. He didn't want anyone to hear him, to try and help him, and risk themselves. He suffered in the maze alone, bleeding and broken be it physically or mentally, and he suffered in the crank palace alone, all in an attempt to protect those he cared about from himself. He protected them all with the lies. Even if some of them didn't believe it. He still remembered his conversation with Newt clearly, with few memories, the ones you do have stick well, for good or for bad... When Thomas had asked about becoming a runner, and Thomas had dumbly asked why Newt wasn't one.

_"Was till I hurt my leg a few months back. Hasn't been the bloody same since." He reached down and rubbed his right ankle absently, a brief look of pain flashing across his face. The look made Thomas think it was more from the memory, not any actual physical pain he still felt. _

_"How'd you do it?" Thomas asked, thinking the more he could get Newt to talk, the more he'd learn. _

_"Running from the buggin' Grievers, what else? Almost got me." He paused. "It's bloody awful out there, ya know? I don't miss it."_

It was in his first days in the glade that Newt had told him the story of hurting his leg running, spreading the white lie that protected the Gladers from Newt's mental state, and likely, protecting Newt himself. He wouldn't want to be coddled. He would hate being treated differently. For people to tip toe around him. He wouldn't have wanted any of that, he would have snapped on anyone that tried. He didn't want help, he struggled on to be independent, and it made Thomas wonder about Newt as a runner.

He'd said they were the strongest, smartest, fastest of them all, and he wondered how the boy had run before his limp, but he just couldn't imagine it. He was shucking good with the limp, strong as hell and always managing to keep up, even if he had to almost skip to keep pace with the others and keep from hurting himself. He always held his own, again, never asking for help, never _wanting_ help.

Fighting the Grievers and the bulb creatures Newt had never faltered, never asked for help, never _needed _help. And no one offered it. Thomas realized now because everyone knew Newt could handle himself. Hell he'd figured out how to hurt the bulbs before Thomas did, maneuvering around it and beating it down while favoring his bad leg. Thomas had looked over to make sure Newt was alright and the limping blonde was doing better than he was. He must've been an incredible runner. Thomas's heart ached thinking about his friend, his fists clenched and trembled slightly as he fought back tears and pushed the pain back behind a wall he had built.

Newt was selfless. He would do _anything_ for someone else. He valued _everyone_ else above himself. And it was a terrible, painful truth. But it was the truth. It was in every action the older boy made. Every word the boy spoke. Every decision he made had the group interest at heart, and his own interests discarded almost completely. He wanted to protect everyone no matter what it meant. And the loss of a friend that amazing devastated everyone, Minho and Thomas in particular, and Minho didn't even know the fate of his friend.

Minho didn't know what had really happened, that Newt was gone from them forever. The new kids would never know the qualities or personality of Newt. Never know how much theywere missing out with Thomas and Minho as subsequent leaders. Even with _both_ of them leading they fell short.

He couldn't deny it. Wouldn't try. Didn't even want to try and he knew Minho wouldn't either. They needed Newt. Minho and Thomas would never be the leader he was. Neither of them would be and even together the didn't fill his shoes. As leaders or as friends. Their new glade just felt empty without the hobbling blonde and his liberal use of the term "bloody." Without the curly brown hair of the boy who'd been everyone's little brother, for some the one you protect at all costs, and for others the one you kind of want to suffocate, but that you love just the same. Without the sharp blue eyes and constant witty jabs towards everyone of the beautiful girl with black hair rich like midnight sky. Thomas tried to swallow them back, Chuck, Teresa, Newt...

God he'd come so close to the end, the end of it all. So close to the freedom he'd longed for, close to it being worth it that he survived the jump. Thomas hated thinking about it that way, and it always made him wonder if Newt had thought the same way. He was sure most days he did, that he'd stare up at the ceiling and wish he'd climbed just a little bit higher up the wall before jumping.

Thomas knew at heart it was his selfish mind just wanting a way that he could have lived without losing so many close friends... Without being the cause of people's sacrifice... And the hands that ended another's life... But of everyone he lost he just kept falling back to Newt. Maybe it was become he'd been so close to the end. Maybe it was because Thomas felt more responsibility for his death. Maybe it was because of the selflessness of the boy. Maybe it was because he knew how much he'd already suffered before finding out he was not immune, and he was alone.

If only they'd been told the truth when they were rescued. Maybe then they would have been able to help their friend... Maybe then Newt would have let them help him out. Then Thomas thought shuck, I would have tied him down and forced him to let us help his stubborn shank ass, and Minho would support him one hundred percent. Anything to keep him... To save him... His thoughts were interrupted when he realized Minho was talking, had gone ahead with his story without cue, likely due to the lack of response Thomas had been giving throughout the entire conversation, and Minho took that silence as a green light for story time.

And it made him realize yet again and with no less momentum than the first time he remembered: Minho thinks his friend is alive, not well, but alive. That maybe a cure will come one day and save their friend. He still had hope for his friend. Hope for the friend that had been through hell and back and Minho was going to tell Thomas what he knew about the day Newt got hurt. And Thomas couldn't say anything. Couldn't say he _knew_ why Newt limped, that he knew what _really_ happened out there, why Newt felt the way he did about the maze, and he definitely couldn't say what their blonde companion had failed in the maze, Thomas had finished for him with a bullet to his infected brain...

"It was one of those days that gets burned into your brain," he said, a finger to his temple, and Thomas struggled not too visibly flinch at the way his own brain lined up the image of Minho with the one of Newt with a gun to his forehead, of an image burning in your brain the way a bullet might as it tore about the delicate tissues... If he had flinched, Minho wouldn't have noticed.

"It was a day none of us will ever forget," he said, an ominous tone clouding his previously light speech as his hand fell to his lap and his gaze changed, no longer focused here, seeing something very far away, in distance or time, maybe both, but far from where he sat now, on the log next to Thomas, overlooking their long awaited peace. A time miles and miles away, in the center of the maze, in the Glade, in the place that was their home for so long, in a time months and months before now.

There had been a part of Thomas that, ridiculous as it sounded, had hoped, ever since Newt mentioned his fall, that it didn't really happen. That maybe his flare ridden brain was bringing up his _swiped _memories from before the maze, or even making up incidents all by itself.

He didn't want to accept that not only had he shot his friend, but he had made him miserable in the maze too. That there was a possibility Thomas had sat in front of a screen in the cozy observation room of W.I.C.K.E.D. and watched him climb, and watched him fall. Watched him lie there broken and bloodied, and done nothing. Thomas knew it was a ridiculous thing to hope, yet as Minho began his story he still felt his stomach drop as reality hit. Newt had been that desperate. He'd been that lost. That alone. Now the only thing he could hope was that Minho didn't know Newt _jumped_, or at the _very_ least didn't know _why_ he had. He honestly hoped Minho believed some klunk story about a Griever attack, or that he tripped, _anything_ but the truth about what happened to their kind hearted friend that day...

Ever since Newt had mentioned the jump, Thomas had been plagued with _why?_ What was he trying to accomplish by _dying?_ What made his friend that cared more for every one more than himself to leave them all and jump... Thomas remembered Newt growling at the Rat Man that he didn't care about himself anymore when he had tried to use his non-immunity against him, had tried to dangle the cure in front of him to try and persuade the other Gladers to cooperate, and he spat it in the man's face.

Thomas wondered how much of that was knowing wicked was full of klunk and didn't have a cure, and how much was the idea that Newt _never_ cared about himself - which led Thomas to wonder - why didn't he try again?

Was it because people looked to him? Thomas didn't know _when_ Newt became second in command, or what position he held before that, or how much people even respected him. Gally certainly hadn't respected him in the glade. The Gathering after Thomas, Minho and Alby spent a night in the maze proved that. But the decisions Newt made were respected. And again Thomas wondered what the official story for Newt's accident had been. Or if everyone just knew the boy had tried to jump. He found that to be a highly unlikely possibility. Newt was private, conserved, he wouldn't want everyone to know, and Thomas had the feeling if someone knew and started telling others, Newt would have kicked his arse on one leg if he had to.

Thomas realized, again, he had no answers. He didn't know why Newt jumped. And that just made him wonder more why he hadn't done something when he found out he wasn't immune, and that he was infected? Thomas had caught him back at W.I.C.K.E.D. open to the idea of a suicide mission on his part to get the others to safety when he said "we'll get you guys out of here and I'll be fine," and it had hit Thomas that his friend didn't care if he got out himself, but he wanted to get them all to safety, even if it meant staying at the hands of W.I.C.K.E.D. and their experiments.

Why hadn't he tried when he was taken from the Berg? When he was in the Crank Palace? When things were really hopeless, why did he keep fighting? When Minho was in charge even and the leadership was off of his shoulders? Then the guilt would hit him.

He would realize that it was likely part of why he didn't do anything was because he had entrusted Thomas with his escape from The Flare and the ravaged world. Thomas would remember that he failed him. Then the guilt would hit. Newt's angry, accusatory last words condemning Thomas, blaming him and some days it made him wonder if the reason Newt didn't kill himself was because he wanted Thomas to do it for the sole reason of making him feel responsible, making him accountable _personally_, and if that was the case, it worked. How could it not? It made sense in a way. He could have _tried_ to stop it all.

He could have, he corrected mentally. Teresa would never have gone along with it, least of all that early. But _he_ could have... Maybe then Newt would still be with them... Alby too, though Thomas never took a real liking to him. Teresa would still be alive. All the death that surrounded Thomas. Erased. Then Thomas's throat tightened. Chuck... He would still be alive. Gally wouldn't have the Chubby boy's blood on his hands. And Thomas wouldn't have one of his best friend's blood on his own.

Thomas knew it wasn't fair to berate himself that way. He was only a child. A child told he was helping the world with his contributions. That they were all helping, despite the unfortunate fates some of the _subjects _would meet either in the maze, or shortly after it. But he couldn't help it. He couldn't help but imagine what he could have done, who he could have saved, particularly with Newt. He still wasn't sure how much better off Newt would have been that way. If he had been freed from the experiment after the purge of the initial creators. He would live, in a way. His fate would still be sealed because of The Flare. He would be alone. Isolated. Either by his own choice spatially, or he would distance himself from everyone mentally if he couldn't get away. His brain would slowly deteriorate, moving past the gone until he'd attack and devour even Alby if he saw him. But at least had could have had a life before death.. All any of them had was the maze before they died... They didn't live. They didn't know _anything_. They didn't get to have nice memories to think back on as they took their final breaths. They had misery stacked on more misery.

Thoughts just flooded his mind. _'Trying to always be the bloody here...'_ Echoed in his head. He wasn't a hero. He was just a boy. And he knew that. Especially now. He was just a boy, and he couldn't save everyone. Teresa. Chuck. Alby. Newt... Countless others they lost along the way. Names he never learned. Faces he'd never seen because their lives, their existence, were wiped away before he'd arrived in the and he'd forever lost the memories of observing them.

Faces that should have been around their new glade. Voices he should hear laughing with the others across the campfires and meal circles. And he felt a part of each boy's blood on his hands for sitting back and doing nothing as they died. The boy who'd been sliced clean through the middle for trying to descend the box chamber, the bones he had stumbled upon in the Deadheads back in the glade, had W.I.C.K.E.D. written all over it. And for all Thomas knew, he could have been the one to set the thing on the poor, helpless, curious, scared boy.

He'd helped develop the maze, had he helped plan Chuck's death? Not thinking he would get personally close to and attached to the kid? Not knowing the death would effect him? Did he help design the Grievers? Almost worst of all, and the question he asked himself most... Had he just sat back as Newt climbed up the walls to jump? Did he just passively sit back and watch all the other boys die? Did he even react? Would he ever know the answers to these questions? To even half his questions?

He probably wouldn't. For some reason, he preferred not knowing to the possible confirmation of his worst fears. _Some paradise, _he thought.

**So. Next chapter will have some flashbacks from their time in W.I.C.K.E.D. before the were sent up into the maze. For anyone who read The Kill Order, you know Teresa was very small when she first showed up, so my only assumption can be that the rest of them came early too. Also, in The Death Cure Thomas has a flashback of him at eight or nine and things were going down with W.I.C.K.E.D. Especially with the non-munies, they ****_must_**** have been taken early in order for them not to have caught the flare before the maze. Anyway. Just speculations that may or not be important later. I am thinking about going ahead and changing the rating to M to be safe. If you read Maze Runner, which I assume you all have, you'll be fine. Just M for the violence, gore and mature themes, like Newt's fall and some other things. Nothing sexual. So you're all safe there. Idk. Haven't decided fully since I haven't written the parts I'm concerned about yet. Well. Until next time. Love you guys thanks for reading! And if anyone actually read this whole note, you get a *virtual* cookie. **

**X - Artemeigh **


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**Quick Author's Note: So apparently I don't use enough spaces, and I do understand that, I am horrible about congealing thoughts into these just mass chunks of paragraph. Before editing chapter 1 I had a two and half page paragraph and was just WTF. So here is my trying harder for May A Chance. Hope you are still moderately enjoying this. If you have any ideas or things you'd like to see drop a comment at the reviews and I'll try and incorporate it. But yeah. Here we go. **

"Thomas? You there?"

"Yeah." Thomas didn't turn to look at his friend, his mind was pre-occupied. His vision flashed with a version of a younger him, 12 or 13 years old, studying files of other children. Minho's face faded away and he became enveloped in the portal to his past, changing from the view of an outsider to looking out his younger eyes, sharing the space in the younger him's head without being able to say or change anything that happens. Thomas looks up at Teresa for assistance, not quite used to being able to just ask her in his mind.

"What is it Tom?"

"What are we doing with these?"

"Familiarizing ourselves with the subjects." She stated flatly. Thomas scrunched his nose and groaned. He didn't like that word and she knew it. _Subjects_. Were he and Teresa subjects? Something in his mind, a dark corner, told him yes, they were. Perhaps it was because Thomas knew that, like the others, the names they went by weren't the ones given to them by their mothers and fathers. He knew Teresa had once gone by DeeDee. She hadn't told him that, and he hadn't informed her of it himself. Mostly because he knew it wouldn't make a difference, that she likely wouldn't even care, and partly because he wasn't supposed to know himself.

_Thomas slinked down the clean corridor, the shiny white a normality instead of irregularity at this point, with his shoes in hand to minimize noise. He was curious. Overly curious. He had been taken from his mother and his father had been taken away from them both, and he wanted to know as much as he could know about this place, about what was going on, and hopefully.. that they were really planning on stopping it. _

_They had just let out the lessons with the rest of the boys, and Thomas and Teresa had been told they had the rest of the afternoon to play with the other kids. Teresa had taken to a corner with a book, an older popular series, something about Thrones, unwilling to associate herself with the boys, or perhaps they were unwilling to associate themselves with her. Thomas was easier to make himself fit in, but the only girl among a large group of boys was something odd, and something viewed as suspicious by many in this odd place of mystery and deception. Some of them had decided to wrestle, and Thomas had taken this opportunity to sneak away. He was now approaching a door propped open by a grey trash can with a black trash bag protruding around the edges. He was two feet from the doorframe when he first heard voices. "Have you guys met her yet?"_

_"Who?"_

_"The little girl with black hair."_

_"The crazy sharp witted one that makes you feel like an idiot and like you're the child. You met her?" Thomas immediately thought Teresa. _

_"You're talking about DeeDee right?" Thomas shook his head, knowing he hadn't seen any DeeDee in the lab, and that kind of name certainly didn't belong to a boy. He knew there was group B, but they were in a separate part of the facility, so why would they be talking about one of those girls over here? And one that so markedly resembled his best friend?_

_"You know we are supposed to refer to them by their given names or by their subject numbers," someone had corrected in a harsh, throaty voice. Given names? Thomas had wondered. _

_"Man, her eyes freak me out, they're cold as freaking ice and way more intelligent than a child, it's like a adult lives in her little body." That has to be Teresa.. He thought. But then why are they calling her DeeDee? He found the answer just a couple days later, when they began studying the files of every boy there, and he noticed that each of them had a birth name and a facility name. The boys in the group still went by their birth names, but when he had inquired about the dual names, the supervisor simply said after the swipe, that is all they will remember. He had asked why they were changing the names, but he got no response. As usual, he had thought sourly. _

Thomas's mouth was curled down in a slight frown. It wasn't just the names either. He just had a feeling that they were subjects. He just knew. He looked back down at his folder and his frown deepened, they had been studying these for literal years. The information that got added daily was minimal and for the most part Thomas knew all these boys better than they knew themselves and the idea sickened him.

He shouldn't have this kind of in depth, private and intimate knowledge of people, shouldn't know all the strengths weaknesses and details of boys who scarcely knew he even existed or even ones that disliked the fact that he existed. He closed the thick black binder composed of cream colored _subject_ folders, setting it next to the other black binders, each containing a different group of boys and marked with the bold white initials of W.I.C.K.E.D. and stood, one hand on the desk and one hip slightly cocked.

"What are you doing?" Teresa hissed. Thomas just looked at the door. The gleaming white door slid open and a man in a suit walked through. Thomas looked lazily at Teresa with a 'here we go again' look on his hanging head.

"It's time for testing," the new man said flatly. Thomas groaned internally but he and Teresa walked out the door, leaving the files behind, knowing they'd just be back in the same room later. Kevin Anderson told them they had to be ready, they didn't know what for, and Thomas couldn't imagine how staring at the same pages of information he already knew for hours was going to help this. Whatever _this_ was.

_Hey Teresa,_ Thomas thought, concentrating deeply and envisioning something like an old fashioned email system, watching the silent message travel from his mind to hers like the envelope in the mail process.

_You look like you're trying to crap your pants, don't try so hard_. Her facial expression didn't even twitch as she communicated with him, somehow more naturally adept at the communication. Thomas still didn't quite know how to turn off thoughts and turn them into messages except by visualizing it, which made him concentrate. Which apparently made him look like he was trying to use the bathroom.

_Whatever. Where is Alice?_ Alice was the one that usually escorted the kids. A kind short woman with black hair and bright green eyes. She reminded them of a cat often the way she would narrow her eyes at Thomas when he misbehaved and her body would tense to grab him by the scruff of the neck like the coiling of a cat targeting its prey. She was a nice woman. Even when she held Thomas by his ear and berated him for acting childish or for sneaking off to talk to the other boys when he wasn't supposed to, she had kindness to her voice. She was comforting and reminded Thomas of what he thought an older sister would be like. He didn't have siblings so he didn't really know what a sister was like, but he imagined she was like one, maybe even was one to someone else.

_Hm. I don't know. Maybe she got transferred?_ Thomas shook his head. It didn't feel right. She hadn't been... quite herself, but she always assured the kids she was tired and stressed when they inquired, a typical human response to a question you don't want to fully disclose information to. He didn't know if that meant it was a personal problem, or if it was a more serious problem...

Thomas had heard _The Flare_ tossed around here and there, but no one had explained it to him. It didn't take much talking about Virus VC321xb47 in briefings about the trials and results they were hoping to gain and how Thomas, Teresa and the others were supposed to be helping form a cure for, to figure out it was the technical term for what his father had suffered from, that it was the same disease that had been slandered as _The Flare. _The jargon made it sound like it was directly caused by the sun flares, but Thomas wasn't so sure. The information he got was limited, but the timeline didn't quite line up.

_You think she has it don't you?_ Teresa interrupted. Thomas didn't answer. Simple walked on. Long dim hall after long dim hall they went until they hit the dividing point of the staffing side of W.I.C.K.E.D. and the experimental side, the _subject_ side. The man went to the large black doors, over to the silver pin pad and punched a few numbers in, scanned his hand and swiped his ID card. The doors clicked, a sound that resounded across the empty halls of the sterile facility. There was another long hall leading up to a door that was left propped open, it's white face shining in the available light, a brightly shone, windowless face. Thomas walked through the door and into an ever more dimly lit room, a large room, filled with rows upon rows of computers on desks, their bright light glowing onto the faces of the boys already seated, lighting them up like the pale face of a ghost and Thomas had to make himself look away, _stop thinking about them that way_, he told himself.

Teresa, as always, seemed unfazed. Thomas wondered how she could do that. She was his best friend, and he understood she had been though hell and back, that the way she had found out she was immune as a child was horrific and gruesome, but he still couldn't figure out how she could be so apathetic looking at the faces of other children, children that he knew wouldn't see the end of this trial, wouldn't see the result, and he was certain she knew, she tended to know more than he did half the time so she had to know this. Thomas could never shake it.

The fact that these kids were unknowingly walking to their deaths, laughing today and cold on the ground tomorrow. Thomas also knew some of them, along with countless thousands of others, were walking dead without this trial and without the results they hope to gain from it because they weren't immune. He knew there was death on both sides. Whether they intervened or let the virus run its course there would be death.

So which was the lesser of two evils? The deaths of a few dozen _kids_ or a few thousand, maybe even millions, Thomas didn't know how much of the population was left, how much was healthy and how much was infected and not _gone_. He'd heard that term thrown around too. Gone referring to the person's humanity. He had observed a _gone_ infected. A man, barely a man, snarling at the plexi-glass wall between him and the observers. His fingers had been chewed off and his hair was gone in patches. He had thought the man had gotten into fights before they brought him in, but as he watched him he realized a lot of his wounds were self-inflicted. He would howl at the ceiling, rip out his hair and claw at his own eyes. Watch him drag his bloody, stubby fingers down his arms to create new gashes and return his fingers to his mouth and continue gnawing them. Thomas could barely keep his food down watching, and Teresa stood, stone cold expression, just next to him.

But this time, she could sense his unease and reached out and squeezed his hand, holding on to it as they watched the crazy man, the _crank_. All the jargon he knew about virus VC321xb47 had been from other employees slipping up.

_Why do we have to watch the damn cranks?_

_Shit this guy is way past the gone._

_God help us beat the flare. _

Could they actually beat this? Could they do what doctors over the flare ravaged years couldn't do with conventional medicine? Was mapping out brain function really the answer to it all? Brain disorders had always been the bane of medicine. It was so hard to track down what actually went wrong, what made someone who was normal one day see things and hear things that weren't there. And it was the same for virus VC321xb47. They knew there was an airborne, bloodborne trigger, but they weren't sure _what_ it triggered. Or how to stop it. How to return the brain to normal functioning.

He knew in most aspects, The Flare didn't actually _damage_ the brain. It changed the neurochemical balance and ravaged it that way, but the actual structures were more or less in tact. It seemed rather obvious since they were planning on _curing_ the disease and not just preventing it. You can't cure a man who has lost most of his important brain structure and consequently brain function. Even in this new age of technology rebuilding a human brain would be expensive and difficult, and only available for a small number of people. If that was how they had to follow through with a cure, they were hopeless. Thomas just hoped the virus didn't evolve and begin eating brain structures. That would be fantastic. Just what they needed. A new variable.

Thomas shook the thoughts of the flare from his head. This was their duty wasn't it? This was why W.I.C.K.E.D. was founded, to save humanity, and he'd been assured they couldn't do that without a cure. It brought him back to his question about the lesser of two evils. Sacrifice a few dozen kids and potentially re-secure a future for humanity as a whole, or let the virus run its course, pray the immune would stay immune as the virus progressed and evolved and allow the world to go from there? Analytically speaking, Thomas knew the answer.

The death of a few is justified by the saving of many. But it was harder for him. He was up close with these few. He knew these few. Was friends with these few. He would watch these few die to spare faceless, nameless men, women and children from the fate his parents suffered at the hands of the Virus. He sighed as he and Teresa took their seats in the back area of the auditorium like room, leaning in his chair and letting his head fall back and his arms fall limply to his side. They sat here because it was the point in the room where one could inconspicuously see everyone, _observe_ everyone. Sure they could have sat at the front, but that would segregate them, and the point of the study was to integrate, particularly Thomas, into their group to allow him to gain pre-trial information about each subject, and even more importantly, the potential candidates.

Teresa elbowed him in the gut, light for her, but still enough to make him grunt and sit forward with a lurch and glare at her, a look she completely ignored as she stared forward at her glowing screen, the light illuminating her already pale face and enhancing the contrast between her dark hair and porcelain skin. He stuck his tongue out at her, which made the corner of her lips turn up in a smirk, and Thomas grinned, proceeding to sign onto his computer, the resounding clicks breaking the silence of the sparsely filled room. His eyes flicked over to the top left corner of the computer where the time was placed, the colon between the hour and the minute blinking as the seconds ticked by.

A sniffle sounded from the man at the front of the room. He sat at a large desk, a dark wood and black metal piece of furniture that looked like it weighted two hundred pounds. He sat unmoving, his eyes the only movement as he scanned over the papers in front of him.

He had short hair, dark and cropped in what could only be described as a military hair cut, the underside of the haircut shaven and the top growing out but still short, an inch long at maximum, and yet stubble dusted his jawline and chin.

Glasses sat on his his nose, average rectangular glasses with thin metal frames. His eyes were half-lidded behind the glasses as he read and his hand came to rest on his cheek, propping up his head, his blue eyes not deviating from the papers at all.

As the minutes passed more boys came in, a tall muscular asian, a curly haired, short and chubby boy younger than all of the other already young boys, a boy with an acne problem that was tall as a pole and thin as one too, a boy Thomas thought looked like he was already fifteen years old and sprouting facial hair, a red-headed boy Thomas knew to be George, well, he knew his name that would be "given" to him was George, he wasn't sure of the boy's real name but the name Fred kept coming to mind. Thomas frowned, he'd been studying the files way too much. Every boy went to a computer and logged on. There was no seating chart or anything, but most of the boys always chose the same seat, except for a few rebel children who would come in and mess things up.

The problem causing asian was already in his seat, and he was one of two main instigators. He heard the man up front put down his book, signaling testing was beginning, and the door swung shut, a small sucking sound the only noise in the room as the door sealed itself closed. Thomas scanned the seats, his eyes lingering on the two empty spaces.

_That's odd. _ He thought. The man at the front was just opening his thin lipped mouth to speak when they keypad to the door began beeping, signaling a visitor trying to gain entrance. Thomas groaned internally. He hated Saturday test days enough without the lengthy pro-W.I.C.K.E.D. guest speakers visting, making testing run even longer than usual. The door began its slow automatic open when long pale fingers reached around from the other side and grasped the thick metal and forced it to open, obviously displeased with the slow movement, just in a terrible hurry, or just a impatient person in general. Thomas felt a chill run down his back and he sat up straight in his chair, feeling Teresa's eyes on him. He ignored her, his own gaze fixed on the frame of the door.

It was a woman. She was tall and in a once flattering black suit jacket and pencil skirt that now hung haphazardly off her body. Her white shirt that was uncharacteristically winkled unlike the crisp, clean presentation of other W.I.C.K.E.D. employees. Thomas would know. He'd seen countless different faces of W.I.C.K.E.D. Her brown hair was long and geasy looking, it seemed like it was hanging from her scalp by a noose, appeared as if nutrients were being drained from it to support her obviously withering body. Thomas couldn't take his eyes off her. He felt uneasy just being in her presence.

Her eyes were dark, almost black, and scanned the room twenty times in the span of a few seconds. Then Thomas noticed something he should have noticed much sooner. She was wearing a surgical mask. he looked at her again, feeling stupid for only just now noticing the mask, and saw her chest was unmoving, like she held her breath as she stood at the opening. Her neck was taught with strain and her legs were wrinkled, the loose skin folding on itself as it covered her muscle barren bones. Her arm was stiff and again, Thomas kicked himself for having noticed, her grip was tight around around the neck of a shirt, holding the person in the garment captive in her grasp. Thomas couldn't quite pull his gaze away from her frantic eyes long enough to see who she had a hold of.

After a few more seconds and a few hundred more scans of the room on the part of the new arrival Thomas's eyes traveled down her ill-fitting jacket sleeve to her gloved hand, another detail Thomas had missed, and to the dark grey tee-shirt neck hanging on the gangly, scrawny boy she had in her grip. His gaze was on the far right corner of the room, avoiding everyone, until his head jerked left and his dark eyes connected with Thomas's. His eyes were dark in a different way than the woman that held him. Hers were dark like evil, like anger, and like fear. Like a captive animal fearful and aggressive. The kind you don't approach. The kind that's dangerous. The one you are afraid will leap and give you rabies even.

His were very different. His were dark like secrets, like the shadows of a dark corner of your mind you hid from. Like someone who's afraid of himself. Like the darkness of a deep body of water in the night, one that would reach out and drown you. Eyes that swirled with sadness when he thought no one was looking. It didn't make sense to Thomas, that kid was Ki Hong's partner in mischief. And he had seen on multiple occasions those dark eyes twinkle with determination to raise hell. Then his eyes were off Thomas.

The boy looked up at the woman, his shaggy blonde hair shining in such contrast to her fragile, sickly, straight dark hair and said with a heavy english accent, "Could you not? I'm here now aren't I?" Her hand fell away and hung limply by her side, like a balloon that had been stuffed full of air and then untied the tension fell from her limb. Thomas pinched his nose. He knew that boy. Casey. The man at the front said a few curt words to each person at the door but he wasn't paying attention to exactly what was said. Thomas knew now, their other missing boy wasn't turning up. The dark skinned boy with the thick shoulders and shaved head was gone. He understood just before he heard Teresa say in his head:

_'It's beginning isn't it?'_

**Okay. There it is. Chapter 3. Um. Hope you like it. Leave your thoughts. And if anyone can tell me which of Thomas Sangster's movies I pulled the name Casey from, I'll give you cookies. **

**Tried to add more spaces so it was less blocked. Idk if it helped any. But I tried. Anyway. Working on chapter 4. Hope you guys liked this one. Please let me know what you think. And if you have any requests let me know and I'll try and bring them in. **

**Artemeigh. **


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